Draft legislation for the new bank levy has been published.
£2.5 bn a year is the best estimate of what it will raise.
I agree with my friend David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, who said:
"Having received over a trillion in public bailout money, the banks can afford to pay an extra £20bn a year which could protect the poorest at home and abroad."
To put it another way, this is a pathetic cop out.
Remember the banks have had a £19bn state subsidy through tax losses we paid for. And this is all they’re being asked to pay in return.
And then you wonder why some are angry enough to protest? I’m not.
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This is one of your most bizarre arguments against banks. Coprporation tax is a tax on cumulative profits. Refraining from imposing a tax on a company that doesn’t have untaxed cumulative profits because of prior losses is not a subsidy.
@Alex
But when the losses in question have already been borne by the state then the case is altered, don’t you agree?
And it has been already borne in all cases
So your logic does not work
It is only valid when the boundaries of limited liability are impermeable
But there they were decidedly permeable – and it seems all must flow from the state to the bank
No, say I
And a lot more, I hope
But the bail out money is going to be repaid, with interest.
The state is also going to make a capital profit on the sale of its shares.
@Pat Lindon
All externalities are going to be repaid?
You sure?
I’m not
So stop being so ridiculously pedantic
[…] blogged the bank levy today and suggested it does not cut the […]
The losses were not borne by the state, but by the shareholders at the time that the banks failed. The government took an equity position in the banks, but got shares back in return. It provided guarantees for some of the assets the banks held, but was paid a handsome fee for doing so.
@Alex
Oh come on
Have you noticed the recession?
The massive cuts in gov’t spending
All the results of banks – and nothing else?
To deny this means you have fallen off the edge of any form of logic